The childhood friend charged with strangling Sarah Stern and then staging her death to make it appear as if she committed suicide was convicted Tuesday after a monthlong trial in Monmouth County.
Liam McAtasney, 21, of Neptune City, was found guilty on all counts — murder, robbery, desecration of human remains, conspiracy to desecrate human remains, tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension.
McAtasney looked straight ahead as the verdict was read, and his defense attorney, Carlos Diaz-Cobo, said his client was “visibly upset” but had no tears in his eyes. “There is an appeal to be had here,” the lawyer said.
After the guilty counts were read, members of Stern’s family hugged each other and cried. Detectives on the case, including lead Detective Brian Weisbrot, shook hands and hugged.
McAtasney now faces life in prison at his sentencing May 24.
The jury’s decision came one day after the panel started deliberations in Superior Court in Freehold, where prosecutors presented 25 witnesses and the defense presented just three.
“The most important thing is to get justice for Sarah,” her father, Michael Stern, told reporters outside the courthouse. “She was a great kid. It never should have ended like this. I want to thank everybody.”
First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Lori Linskey said the office “could not be more proud of today’s result," and she commended the work of the two assistant prosecutors on the case, Christopher Decker and Meghan Doyle.
“Their tireless pursuit of justice in this case was really awe-inspiring to us and we’re incredibly proud of their hard work,” Linskey said. “They’ve work long and hard on this case and it’s been a really long road.”
The trial started with a bang Jan. 23 when the state’s key witness, Preston Taylor, took the stand shortly after opening statements. Taylor, who was Stern’s junior prom date, testified that he removed the 19-year-old’s body from her Neptune City home hours after McAtasney strangled her on Dec. 2, 2016. He admitted to helping toss her body off the Route 35 bridge in Belmar with McAtasney and leaving Stern’s car with the keys inside to make it appear as if she jumped off the bridge.
Stern’s body has never been found. The state presented an expert on ocean tides from Rutgers University who testified that Stern’s body likely traveled 7 miles out to sea within 24 hours.
Diaz-Cobo framed his client as an immature young adult who was known to make up stories. That was the case, Diaz-Cobo said, when McAtasney got into his friend Anthony Curry’s car and described in chilling detail how he strangled Stern and then timed her death. The confession was captured on a secret camera placed in Curry’s car by detectives.
"It took me a half hour to kill her,” McAtasney said in the video. “I thought I was going to choke her out in a couple minutes. … She was having a seizure on the floor. I got a shirt and shoved it down her throat so she wouldn’t throw up and held my finger over her nose and set a timer.”
Diaz-Cobo told the jury the confession was an elaborate lie to impress Curry, a budding horror filmmaker, and that McAtasney had pitched him movie ideas in the past.
The video was played before the jury near the conclusion of the state’s case. Portions of it were replayed for the jury during Decker’s summation. Jurors asked to rewatch the video during their deliberations. Each time it was played, it elicited strong emotions from Stern’s family.
“It’s gut-wrenching, it’s hurtful,” Michael Stern said of the video, after the verdict was reached. “To think that someone pretending to be her friend actually did that to her without any remorse. It’s painful. It’s sad. It’s just horrible.”
Throughout the duration of the trial, Michael Stern sat in the second row of the courtroom flanked by Sarah’s extended family. They wore purple shirts and purple wristbands in her honor.
The McAtasney family sat on the opposite side of the courtroom.
In the well of the courtroom, the defense table and the table where the two prosecutors sat were stacked. That made it nearly impossible to see McAtasney’s face during the trial. Occasionally he would lean over and whisper in his attorney’s ear.
On one day, several of McAtasney’s friends sat in the courtroom and he turned to them and gave a thumbs-up after they said his name.
But on most days, he sat silently and stared ahead at Judge Richard English. The only time McAtasney spoke was to tell English that his choice was “to remain silent” and not testify.
The verdict puts to rest a case that took more than two years to go to trial. The trial was delayed due to pre-trial motions and hearings. McAtasney also fired his first attorney, Charles Moriarty, and hired Diaz-Cobo at the beginning of 2018.
The state presented a case that relied on circumstantial evidence, leading Diaz-Cobo to argue that there wasn’t any hard proof his client committed the murder. Additionally, having no body in a case raises reasonable doubt on its own, Diaz-Cobo argued.
McAtasney’s fingerprints were never found on anything, Diaz-Cobo said. McAtasney stated during his taped confession to Curry that Stern urinated herself, but Diaz-Cobo made it a point to question each investigator on whether any urine was found anywhere at the scene. The answer from the lead detective on the case was no.
But the state was able to present evidence corroborating much of what McAtasney told Curry. McAtasney said the money he stole -- approximately $10,000 -- was old and looked like it was from the 1980s. Prosecutors showed the jury the cash that was recovered in a buried safe on Sandy Hook that Taylor led them to.
A detective, John Sosdian, testified that McAtasney accessed the stopwatch app on his cellphone around 4:15 Dec. 2, 2016.
The state, however, mainly rested its case on the back of Taylor, McAtasney’s admitted accomplice. Taylor, 21, pleaded guilty to six charges involving robbery and the treatment of human remains and agreed to testify against his friend and former roommate. He will likely get 20 years in prison at his sentencing on May 24.
Preston Taylor is pictured on the witness stand. The murder trial of Liam McAtasney (not pictured) entered its second day at the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold, NJ, on Thursday, January 24, 2019. He is charged with the murder of Sarah Stern.Russ DeSantis | For NJ Advance M
Taylor described in detail on the witness stand how the plan to rob Stern took shape after she found a shoebox full of cash left by her late mother in a family home in Avon-by-the-Sea. McAtasney was with Stern when she found the cash, Taylor said.
McAtasney thought there was much as $100,000 in the shoebox, according to Taylor.
“At first we started discussing the fact that it was a lot of money, what we would do if we had that type of money,” Taylor said. “And then the conversation evolved into, ‘Well, what if we did have that type of money,' specifically her money. That was when the idea to rob her came about."
McAtasney, in a later conversation at the bar where Taylor worked, then made a shocking statement, according to the latter’s testimony: “It was the type of money that someone would kill for."
McAtasney was the last person to be seen with Stern on Dec. 2, 2016. A neighbor, Carly Draper, testified that on that day, McAtasney was helping Stern move boxes and that the two came to her home. Draper said Stern and McAtasney talked about the possibility of moving together to Canada. Stern, an aspiring artist and a fan of internet celebrities, had friends in Canada and loved it up there, her family said.
However, Taylor said the talk of moving to Canada between Stern and McAtasney was a way to get Stern to withdraw some of her newfound fortune from a safe deposit box at the Kearny Bank in Bradley Beach. Prosecutors played surveillance footage of Stern at the bank on Dec. 2, 2016, accessing her box.
Taylor also said McAtasney, who was waiting in the car while Stern was inside the bank, told him then he was going to “take her out.”
After the robbery occurred, Taylor and McAtasney buried two safes: one in Shark River Park in Wall and another on Sandy Hook. Taylor took detectives to both sites where they found the safes. One safe, recovered from Sandy Hook, contained proceeds from the robbery. The other safe in Shark River Park had nothing in it, but it was the same safe where Stern kept some of the cash inside her room.
The trial was thrown into chaos after two jurors were dismissed following a Facebook comment one of them posted about sitting on the jury.
The case will reach a national audience when specials air on both “20/20” and “Dateline.”
Michael Stern told reporters after the verdict that “he’s looking forward to getting some sleep.”
“Justice was served,” he said. “Sarah’s up in heaven. She’s an angel, and she didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
“I don’t understand what the fight was," Stern said of McAtasney. “He should have just pled guilty in the beginning and this would have been over with two years ago.”
Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.